Re:If wages are to rise, workers need more bargaining power
by castlecrasher2 on Wednesday June 06, 2018 @11:04AM
(#17247705)
> If you own a company, or a TV station, or a news source, or a large number of shares in a company, your ability to influence the world is very much greater than someone who doesn't.
Taken to the extreme, the logical conclusion here is no one can own a company, therefore one cannot own a part of a company lest they be able to buy up the whole company, and therefore one cannot own property lest they collect it and have more than others (inequality). To your last sentence, what problems are caused by inequality that aren't simply because of envy?
Re:If wages are to rise, workers need more bargaining power
by s73v3r_ on Wednesday June 06, 2018 @01:10PM
(#17248945)
"Taken to the extreme"
That's usually a poor place to leap to.
Re:If wages are to rise, workers need more bargaining power
by aaron_m04 on Wednesday June 06, 2018 @12:38PM
(#17248611)
> There are also resources that are drawn from a fixed-size pot. Land ownership for example. If a tiny number of people assume possession of vast amounts of land, the amount left for everyone else is reduced.
Excellent point. Similarly, the pool of doctors is fixed in the short term, because it takes time for new doctors to go through medical school so that supply increases to meet demand.
This means in the short term, rising inequality can drive up the price of medical costs (at least the part of these costs that goes to doctors' wages).
If you own a company, or a TV station, or a news source, or a large number of shares in a company, your ability to influence the world is very much greater than someone who doesn't. Your relative influence over society is a zero-sum game. And your relative influence over society reduces when a small number of people get hugely rich.
There are also resources that are drawn from a fixed-size pot. Land ownership for example. If a tiny number of people assume possession of vast amounts of land, the amount left for everyone else is reduced.
It's a very good thing that people are being lifted out of poverty in the sense that they can afford food and shelter, basic sanitation and so on. But this is really the minimum we should aim for.
Access to more toys can be a good thing in many cases, though I'm not convinced it's a good measure of how well society is doing. But being able to afford more electronic items or whatever does not really eliminate the problems caused by extreme wealth inequality.